The Olympics: The Couch-Crashing friend no one wants.

The Olympics must stop hopping around cities. The International Olympic Committee has long
deluded cities into believing that hosting the Olympic games is a great honour. The fact is,
having the games change hosts every four years is a contentious issue towards cities and their
populations. Cities are still blind sighted by the short term benefits of hosting the games while
completely disregarding the long term consequences and doing nothing to aid those affected.
The amount of money poured into the construction of infrastructure far outweighs any revenue
generated and the land needed requires the mass displacement of citizens and residents living
in the area. The same infrastructure is most likely left abandoned after the games or consuming
large sums of money to maintain the facilities showing the unsustainability of hosting the
Olympic games which has a long history of mismanagement and corruption scandals potentially
damaging the host city’s image. This nomadic nature of the quadrennial games must come to a
stop before future cities fall victim to its trap.

Hosting the games leaves the state financially depressed with the revenue generated not
enough to compensate for the costs. It is no surprise that hosting the games requires
governments and councils to pour huge sums of money to accommodate not only the games
but also the influx of people coming to visit. Over the past five summer games, expenses on the
games cost upwards of 24 billion dollars on average. Furthermore, the revenue generated
doesn’t even come close to breaking even; the 2012 games hosted in London saw costs of 13.3
billion dollars with only 5.2 billion dollars in revenue generated. Additionally, only half of all
revenue generated goes back to the city, with the IOC taking the other half. This means that
hosting the games left the city of London in 10.7 billion dollars in debt. This isn’t just a one off
anomaly however, the 2016 games in Rio de Janeiro saw the spending of 13 billion dollars with
only 6.2 billion dollars in revenue generated. Keeping in mind that the IOC takes half of that, Rio
was left in 9.9 billion dollars of debt. All the costs associated with hosting the games should be
more than enough reason to deter from it, but the costs are always rising, even decades after
the Olympic torch has been extinguished.

The hefty maintenance fees of keeping the facilities up to date are a never ending drain, sucking
in money costing governments and taxpayers huge sums of money. Sydney’s own Olympic
Park stadium costs 30 million dollars a year to maintain (according to CFR), Beijing’s Bird’s Nest
stadium costs 10 million dollars a year to maintain and has sat largely unused ever since the
end of the 2008 games (according to CFR). In 2004, the facilities constructed in Athens now lie
completely abandoned. This is especially detrimental to the Greek government who spent 11
billion dollars on the infrastructure that contributed to its economic instability. As a result, when
the Global Financial Crisis hit Greece, they were devastated, taking them until 2018 to recover
from the Greek debt crisis, the biggest hit on the Greek economy in recent history (according to
Brittanica). After the 2016 games in Rio, the Brazil national team used a small handful of
facilities serving as training venues but none were permanent. Seven years on and the
infrastructure lays forgotten. This highlights the unsustainability of the games of which this
nomadic nature must be stopped. All the money and construction poured into the facilities and
infrastructure, are abandoned after 17 days, and that's not to mention the countless people
forcibly evicted to make space for construction.

1.2 million. That is the number of people that were forcibly evicted from their homes in order to
have space to build the facilities for the 2008 games in Beijing. Unfortunately, people evicted
are usually of lower economic and social status. In 1988, Seoul displaced 720,000 people to
make room for the Olympics according to the Geneva-based Center on Housing Rights and
Evictions. 77,206 residents that lived in poverty areas were displaced to make way for Olympic
infrastructure. This displacement of marginalised populations has been a prevalent social and
political issue coming into light with more recent games. This is further proven with the London
government demolishing Clay’s Lane, a low income housing development. This is especially
detrimental to poorer people, some of which desperately need government money to stay afloat.
But instead the money that could have gone to the people who needed it most, is instead being
spent on infrastructure that costs tens of billions of dollars, is unsustainable and will lie
abandoned after two weeks. Every four years, a small handful of disadvantaged communities
get the short end of the stick, soon there will be no more long ends. Hosting the games also has
the potential to ruin a city’s image, which is ironically the main selling point of hosting the
games.

With the games being broadcasted on every national television broadcast and being watched by
nearly half the world, countries must expect the usual entourage of media personnel,
broadcasting every move, every minute detail about the games. While some might consider this
as a minor inconvenience, they’re forgetting that the media is a weapon. Brazil was exposed for
the mismanagement of their funds, shifting a lot of relief money that should have gone towards
communities of lower economic class, to the construction of the facilities needed to host the
games. Upon further inspection, Brazil was also found to have not only mismanaged money that
should have gone to the slums, but the government erected a literal wall to conceal the poor
communities from tourist’s and spectator’s views. Popular news media company Vox uploaded
a video detailing this barrier accumulating 10 million views. On top of this, Japanese advertising
was recently put on blast by the media for violating an anti-monopoly law in a corruption scandal
over allegations of bid-rigging during the Olympics via The Guardian circa 2023. This negatively
affects Japan’s culture of honesty and discipline where hard work is rewarded. On top of this,
the scandal also hurts Sapporo’s chances of hosting the 2023 Winter Olympics, which for
reasons aforementioned, shouldn’t be in Japan’s best interest.

Overall, the Olympics must stop jumping around cities and countries as they leave the
surrounding area financially depressed due to the sheer costs of the infrastructure required and
lack of revenue generated to compensate. The same infrastructure is likely left abandoned,
sitting there to rot or incurring hefty maintenance fees paid by taxpayers. In order to make room
for the infrastructure, people, and especially of lower economic class, are forcibly removed from
their homes, displacing hundreds of thousands. Furthermore hosting the Olympics brings in lots
of media attention and the murky history of Olympic corruption potentially damaging the host
city’s image. Governments must stop deluding themselves from the select benefits hosting the
games brings to their cities and realise the detrimental costs and negatives of hosting the
games.